How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media – Wired, April 2010.

By now, you have probably heard of how Shirley Sherrod, a former(?) Federal official, was forced to resign after a heavily-edited video of a recent speech she gave at an NAACP event was used as evidence of reverse-racism in Obama’s administration.  After the tape was released by Mr. Breitbart to FOX News, both the NAACP and White House called for Ms. Sherrod’s resignation.

Then, the unedited video was released (you can view it here).  Basically, the videotape shows that Ms. Sherrod’s statements were the exact opposite of what FOX News reported.  The NAACP apologized last night for being “snookered“  and called for her case to be reconsidered.  The farm family that Sherrod referred to even defended her while, just a few hours ago, the White House apologized.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided if the White House and the USDA remembered one basic fact – FOX News is not an actual news station.  Also, once they realized that Mr. Breitbart was behind the videotape, they should have remembered how an earlier, heavily-edited videotape falsely accused ACORN (and let to that organization’s demise).  At the very least, someone should have asked to see the complete unedited tape.  Even Mr. Breitbart admits that viewing the entire tape demonstrates that Ms. Sherrod is not a racist.

Mr. Breitbart and others like him are taking advantage of the decline of journalism.  Newsrooms are cutting back on staff and especially investigate reporters.  At the same time, they have to fill the 24-hour news hole and compete with other cable stations and local news.  Ratings are more essential now than ever.  Media manipulators know these weaknesses and use them to their partisan advantage.  As the Sherrod case shows, reputations can be damaged in just a few hours.  What is unusual about the Sherrod case is that the true picture came just as quickly.  In cases such as ACORN or Climategate, it was several months before the truth came out but was of little help in averting the damage.

It is imperative that the audience become more skeptical and reserve judgment before all of the facts are in.  More and more media manipulators are taking advantage of the decline of traditional journalism to spread their falsehoods.  Unfortunately, I don’t hold much hope as when obviously fictional news events (such as this from the Onion) are viewed as investigative journalism.

You have a strange idea of “fun,” Mr. Breitbart.

“Traditional approaches to organizational change generally follow a linear, rational model in which the focus is on controllability under the stewardship of a strong leader or ‘guiding coalition’.  The underlying assumption of this classical approach, ever popular among change consultants, is that organizational change involves a series of predictable, reducible steps that can be planned and managed (Collins, 1998).  The evidence from case studies of failed change implementations indicates, however, that this uni-dimensional, rational focus is limited because it treats change as a single, momentary disturbance that must be stabilized and controlled.  Such a view fails not only to appreciate that change is a natural phenomenon which is intimately entwined with continuity but, also, that the change-continuity continuum is what defines organizations and their ability both to exploit and explore.  Change and continuity represent competing but complementary narratives, bring in ambiguity and novelty to destabilize as well as validate existing organizational routines.” (pp. 135-136).

But the rest of the article doesn’t live up to the promise of introducing a new method for bringing about organizational change.  The authors catalog ten change philosophies* by describing each philosophy’s methods for change and associated shortcomings.  They then discuss the continuity-change continuum and argue that change agents must use a “multi-philosophic” approach even though the authors don’t specify what they mean by multi-philosophic. That is unfortunate because I believe that they have pinpointed the fundamental problem with change management in modern organizations.

Organizations are in a constant state of change as an inherent part of its interactions within and without.  Organizations are also constantly resisting change because the members are trying to maintain continuity.  Most of the time, change is a constant background hum in the organization that periodically causes minor changes in processes (switching from voice mail to email to communicate requests or distributing information via the web versus the previous method of printed reports).

Change agents need to realize that change already exists in the organization and that to bring about deep change is to dial up the change part of the continuum while realizing that people in the organization are conditioned to respond by dialing up the continuity part.  If the organizational change is meant to destroy the existing continuity part of the continuum in favor of a new continuity, there will be a period of chaos until the new continuity is established in the continuum.  Change produces feedback and this has to be handled carefully or the increasing disruption can upset the continuum balance.

Graetz and Smith (2010) have the beginnings of a successful change method.  Harness the change inherent in the organization and realize how the continuity portion of the continuum will resist the change.  Convince a critical mass of the organization’s members to drop the continuity in favor of the change in order to shift the balance.

The big question is just how do you handle these tasks in the change-continuity continuum?

Note:

* Biological, Rational, Institutional, Resource, Contingency, Psychological, Political, Cultural, Systems, and Postmodern.

Reference:

Graetz, F., & Smith, A.C.T. (2010). Managing organizational change: A philosophies of change approach. Journal of Change Management, 10:2. 135-154.

Whatever the result, I’m dropping ScienceBlogs from my Bloglines reader.  Time to find some new science blogs that actually post about science.

Then the last issue appeared in May of 2009.  There was an announcement on the website that the next issue would be out on June 2009 but none have appeared since that May issue.  The ScienceBlogs are still active but they haven’t been as good as they used to.  The better blogs have moved on to other sites and what is left is not that focused on scientific (with a few exceptions).  You have a few blogs that spend most of their time arguing with creationists and fundamentalists; other blogs that essentially repost clips from Olberman, Maddow, or Jon Stewart; and a couple of self-aggrandizing blogs.  There are a few standout blogs that I enjoy but they seem to leave after a while or stop posting altogether.

Now, ScienceBlogs has a new blog from PepsiCo called Food Frontiers.  A corporate-sponsored blog has the other ScienceBloggers up in arms about this conflict of interest.  I find it an interesting position when Seed magazine had advertisements and the ScienceBlog site has banner ads all over it.  The other blogs have touted their own books and others (one blog even has a “shoe of the week” which is tongue-in-cheek but can be construed as blatant advertising).  To me, this is just another sign of the decline of Seed and ScienceBlogs because to allow such a blatantly commercial blog speaks of a desperate attempt to raise money.  And once Seed lets in one commercial blog, it is opening the door to more.

This is a sad reflection on modern science as it has been recently revealed how corporations have funded research that conveniently confirms the interests of the corporate sponsors.  I guess I didn’t expect this with science journalism.  It is sad to see but there are other science magazines and science blogs.  I really did like Seed and ScienceBlogs and I hope that they rediscover their objectivity.

As of 2006, there were over 1 million articles on organizational change and a multitude of change models in the literature. But, surprisingly, these change models were prescriptive rather than descriptive of actual change processes. I knew from my project management experience that most organizational change efforts fail or are only partly successful. What I wanted to do was develop a research method to collect empirical data on change efforts.

The entire dissertation is available on Scribd any you are welcome to download a copy. With the wiki, I have summarized the dissertation chapters and will update the research as new articles are published and I review other organizational change efforts.

I appreciate any comments or suggestions that any readers have and I am also looking for any agencies that are interested in being research subjects. Thank you.

If you were a fan of SCTV then you might recognize the title from Orson Welles’ (impersonated by John Candy) farewell in several skits.

This is going in my book on organizational failure.

She gives an example of how children learn more when they are given tools to create content rather than tools that just deliver content.  Now, she talks about technology in the classroom but this equally applies to technology in the workplace.  Think of the training that consists of delivering content (lecture, PowerPoint, brown bag talk, etc.) versus the training where people are encouraged to play with the new software program or tool.

I consider the basis of learning to be the creation of mental models.  You cannot just transmit your mental model completely to me; I have to create one unique to my own mind.  You can give me information to build the model and you can create experiences that will shape the mental model but the final product is still through my unique mental processes.  But every mental model starts with engagement.  Thus, this is why allowing people to make content rather than absorb content is the key to effective learning.